Sweden vs Mars?

It's time for a treat! What's there to eat?

"Hey, Sven. Got a spare M and M?"

It’s doubtful that there’s anyone in the United States unaware of the candy with the initial
"m” on the piece or on the pack.Every US candy lover knows about the famous candy, but few pay any attention to the letter stamped on each piece.

 Is it “M”. or.”m”..“M and M” or even “m and m”?

 Who cares? It’s one of America’s favorite candy.

Forrest Mars invented the recipe for “m and m”s chocolate during the Spanish Civil War. Mars noticed soldiers eating pieces of chocolate covered with a hard sugary coating in their daily mess-kit. He realized that the coating prevented the candy from melting in the hot sun. After the war, Forrest began producing the now-famous condiment and received a patent for his manufacturing process on March 3, 1941. The candy became famous and popular world wide, except in selected companies due to their existing and similar product. The countries not interested were Finland, Norway and Sweden because these countries were happily consuming their own sugary condiment and didn’t appreciate any competition. For this reason, The US company Mars did not attempt to promote their popular 'm and m' product and honored their “No sale”agreement in 1989. All went well until the agreement lapsed. Not being renewed, Mars decided to introduce m and ms to Swedish candy lovers.

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All this time, Marabou, a Swedish candymaker owned by Mondelez had been  satisfying Swedish candy-lovers

since the 1950s with their chocolate product they had been selling in Europe using the brand name “m”.

The resulting competition became too much, as well as confusing shoppers because both the US and Swedish company was using the same letter “m” for their trademark. Swedes always enjoy their chocolate and there was bound to be a problem.Americans are noted for being “No.1” in candy consumption, but Sweden is in the top ten.

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“En familj på 4 personer konsumerar 1,2 kilo godis i veckan!.”

 For those of you  who do not speak Swedish, the English translation reads “A family of four consumes 1.2 kilograms of candy a week.”

"Swedes eat on average 16 kilos of candy per person a year" according to the Board of Agriculture. For those who do not use metrics: That’s a lot!  And the amount consumed creates other problems. All this sugar causes tooth decay! It’s claimed that Swedes ‘have the biggest sweet tooth around’ and Swedish authorities attempted to slow the sugar consumption urging consumers to ease their daily sweets urges .

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They introduced  "lördagsgodis” (Saturday candy) , a ritual of choosing (and eating) 'pick 'n mix' candy to encourage “Candy eating only on weekends", hoping this might ease the daily habit. Swedish kids loved the Saturday ritual of unlimited candy! Once a week, Swedes were given a free pass to indulge in all the gummies, chocolates, and salty licorice their Nordic hearts desired. However, the kids', and adults’ daily habit did not go away.                    Candy sales soared.

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When the US Mars company, and “m and ms began to be too much for the Swedish Marabou-Martinez company, Mars was called into court and was forced to stop selling their “m and m” product, due to their very similar trademark of the single lower-class “m” ,  claiming the Swedes had a patent on the “m” trademark.

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In Swedish, there is something called“smågodisätande”( Loosely translated: candy snacking ). All food stores usually have a whole wall lined with “pick-and-choose yourself” bulk candy. A favorite snack is “pastelifiskar”, a fish-shaped chewy wine pastel fish offered in several colors. By the way, candy, is called 'godis' in Swedish.

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Despite all the Swedish candies, Mars believed there was a market for their m and m product  and countersued for the right to sell their product. Finally the Swedish Supreme Court worked out a compromise  both companies accepted. The Swedish product would retain the lower case "m" while Mars candies would be required to change their products to be marked with the UPPER case "M" and both companies were in business. "M and M" was now saleable in Sweden and quickly accepted.

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 Back home, here in the USA,The American company Nabisco took notice and decided to create a “Limited Edition” of a possible product to lure  American candy-eaters to mimic the Swedish candy-habit

and decided to cash in on the Swedish fish motif . Nabisco was successful with their Oreo Cookie product and decided to produce a ”Limited Edition” product based on the Swedish fish idea here in the USA. They called their new offering “The Fish Oreo” using the very popular chocolate covers, and instead of the usual minty filling, Nabisco substituted a red filling that had a hint of fish added.
 The Swedish Fish Oreo after-taste gave tasters an unusual and apparently unexpectedly annoying taste experience.

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Several reviews were not favorable and the new product was not a great success. However, Nabisco’s ”Fish Oreo” is available in select USA stores and can be ordered on-line today! A spokesperson  for Mars felt that there never was  confusion between the two “m” products. Marabou was a peanut candy while America’s M “melted in your mouth”. At the latest report,  Swedish candy shoppers can pick up both "M and M"s  and their own “m” candies from their stores. Probably, not side-by-side!    

Sweet!

Winter Has Arrived

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" 

"Back in the day", this was the theme of a familiar ballad sung by a suitor to his date while urging her to stay indoors. It was winter time.

Winter has arrived. It came in January this year bringing Helena, who  arrived on-board The Polar Express, using the common PolarVortex on the track of the well-known Northwesterly Jetstream. This usually occurs in our northerly areas and usually brings trouble.

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Helena is a winter storm expected to dump a few feet of snow with temperatures that can dive to dangerous levels. Pieces of this constant-coldpolar vortex have again escaped from the Arctic region depositing frigid air that will put 25 million Americans under windchill conditions of below zero conditions. Wind blasts will cause temperatures to plunge 20 to 45 degrees for a week before it moves on to the eastern USA. If its cold here, it must be really frigid in Norway!

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According to Judah Cohen, the director of Seasonal Forecasting, an Atmospheric  Research center in the US, “Siberia is the refrigerator of the Northern Hemisphere where air masses area become chilled.”  Early in the
calendar year, the air from Siberia is always chilled by the snow-covered area  and later exported by the circling jet stream over the United States. At times, this frigid jetstream enters areas of low pressure and sags southernly, bringing unusual snowfalls and chilling temperatures.
So, one might expect that this airflow must do the same to the Scandinavian countries.

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Norway is thought to be a cold, wet country with the same latitude as our Alaska, Greenland and also Siberia. However, the Atlantic Ocean has it’s own currents working. Norway has a pleasant climate caused by warm ocean

Gulf Stream Atlantic path.

waters  that actually originate in the Gulf of Mexico! This water flows northerly up to the ‘Northland’ becoming known as The Gulf Stream of warm water/air currents.Eastern Atlantic waters are warmer! Norway has a friendlier climate  along the east coast of Norway! The coldest areas in their winters are often inland or far to the north in Norway. While all may see snow, Polar Expresses are rare. ‘Mean’ (average) temperatures in winter months are above freezing along the coast up to the Lofodten area (Northland). The coldest area, the “Finnmark Plateau” has average monthly temperatures around -15°s. .

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As of January 6th, 2017, ( today) the eastern city of Bergen has a temperature of 6° while Oslo thermometers on the southwestern side  read 3°. By Saturday, Oslo’s weekend temperature was expected to drop to -6°. That looks cold as we would expect, but wait! Their temps are registered “Celsius”. We use “Fahrenheit”! There IS a difference!

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Bergen’s 6° C  would be our 43° F !. Oslo’s 3° would be our 37° F. It would drop all the way down to..21° on our scale. That's not very cold. I guess     it all depends on how you look at it.

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Anders Celsius

This Celsius/Fahrenheit thing is strange.Celsius, also known as 'centigrade', is a scale and a unit of measurement for temperature used by most countries in the world. It is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius(1701–1744), who developed a  temperature scale.In the Fahrenheit scale, water boils at 212 degrees. and the freezing point at 32.

Daniel Fahrenheit

 It was developed by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, a German-born scientist who lived and worked primarily in the Netherlands.The common feeling about 'Celsius' is that it is a scientific scale whereas 'Fahrenheit' is a human scale. In Fahrenheit 0° means it’s cold out and 100° is pretty hot! In ‘Celsius’ 0° is chilly while 100° in not survivable!  0° C is 32°F   0°F= -17.77778°C!   ( Boiling water)
 If one is a weather forecaster,  a conversion can be used quickly.

To convert 20 degrees Celsius to degrees Fahrenheit: Use the easy formula

                                                     T(°F) = 20°C × 9/5 + 32 = 68 °F

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Traffic pileup in Southern US

But, even reading in Celsius, winter weather may be ‘cold’. Sweden is forecasted to have  it’s coldest winter in years with piles of snow and low temperatures  according to a three-month forecast from the Danish Meteorology Institute. They expect a weak jetstream which will bring in high pressure and cooler temperatures. Those unruly jet-streams can cause European weather problems very much like ours in the USA, but they still are on the warmer side of the ocean!

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AS we speak, Helena is  'doing a number' down south. Traffic accidents and winter deaths are piling up as thestorm moves to the East.  Winter Storm Watchers have been experiencing unusual conditions in Alabama and North Carolina as winter storm Helena brings ice, sleet and heavy snow to people who may not even own a shovel.



Maybe Norway weather isn’t so bad after all!